These splendid women : with introduction and notes.

  • Sears, Joseph Hamblen, 1865-1946
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: These splendid women : with introduction and notes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

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    columns with capitals of golden bronze, by day shaded by purple awnings, the silk of which was worth its weight in gold, and at night open to the starry sky. See, at all seasons, blooming in the gardens roses and violets, and scatter the pavements of onyx and mosaics four times a day with fresh flowers; people this scenery with crowds of slaves, pipers, players of the harp and psaltery, dancers, actors, Atellans [of the drama, as at Atellan, of lascivious character, Atellanae], acrobats, mimes, gymnasts, ballet- dancers, and serpent-charmers. Load these tables with oysters from Tarentum, lampreys dressed with garum, bonitos cooked in fig-leaves, pink ousels, quails, pheasants, swans, geese livers, stews made of the brains of birds, hares cooked rare and dusted with coriander seeds, truffles as large as the fist which were assumed to fall from the sky like aerolites, cakes of honey and wheat flour, and the most delicious fruits of the Mediterranean basin. In the kitchens, roasting before the fires on immense hearths, for the entertainment of fifteen guests, twelve wild boars, spitted successively at intervals of three minutes, so that, according to the duration of the feast, one of these ani- mals might be exactly cooked at the very moment it was required to be served. Cool in snow the old Caecuban wine, the Falernian ripened for twenty years, the wines of Phlemtes, Chios, Issa, the imperial wine of Lesbos, the ripe wine of Rhodes, the sweet wine of Mitylene, the Saprian, smelling of violets, and the Thasos, said to rekindle failing love. Light up the lamps, the torches, and the chandeliers, wind the pillars with streamers of fire; open the mouths of the bronze colossi that the icy water may flow and cool the atmosphere, and the breasts of Isis that the sweet waters may perfume it; call in the choirs of singing women with their harps and cythera, and the females who dance nude with castanets of gold in their hands; add to them representations of comedies, the farces of mimes, the tricks of jugglers, and the phan- tasmagorias of the magicians; offer mock engagements in